Quality and certification
I had a conversation with Chantal today about certification and quality, again she wanted to know how we can guarantee quality. This is my thinking on the subject.
Coaching is not manufacturing. We are not churning out mass produced, identical products. As I always tell clients, we can guarantee the process or the result, not both.
Where a customer (buyer) wants to make a low risk decision and provision a mediocre service, it's best to guarantee the process. Then the customer can see what they are getting for their money, even though the result will be less than ideal. Since the customer's buying criteria is not getting into trouble for making the wrong decision, the result doesn't matter. It's the same as fleet managers buying Ford Escorts. No-one liked driving them, but who could question the decision to buy Ford?
Where a customer cares about the result that the client (end user) gets, the process is no longer a relevant decision criteria - what matters is the ability to get the result, no matter what.
Some of you will disagree, you will say that to ensure quality you have to follow a defined process and that is true. It's just that quality does not mean good, it means mass producable. If by quality you mean 'the best coaching' then no, you cannot follow a rigid process.
"But you have to follow some process" and of course, yes, you do. You have to find out what the client wants, form a relationship, set some ground rules, explore the situation and so on, until you get to the end result. But how long exploring the situation? And will there be any barriers? How many? And will the client come up with the optimal solution first time? These are the things that cannot be predicted, so coaches who stick to a rigid process always fail to get deep enough into the situation to be of any real benefit to the client.
So, if the customer wants to provision a coaching service that looks good on paper, go for quality, certification, a defined process.
If the customer wants to deliver a coaching service that actually gets measurable business and personal results, focus on outcome, on those measurable results. And then let the coach get on with it.
Certificates do not define quality for one very, very simple reason. The certificates for coaching are issued by coach training schools who make money out of issuing certificates. You work out the ethics of that one.
Oh - and the difference between provision and delivery? A HR department can provide a coaching service but that doesn't mean anyone has to use it. They can simply make it available for employees to use if they want to. Since few people will, it doesn't matter if it's any good. It's the same basis as legal helpines etc. The number of people who actually use them is tiny, but the perceived benefit is high.
To deliver a coaching service means to actually have it running, live, coaching people, getting results, evaluating. That's where coaches prove their worth, not in their certificates.
But - there will always be people who just find it easier to believe a piece of paper from a company that they don't really know anything about. At school, we took O and A levels certified by, for example, JMB. I'm sure that JMB are a very reputable and credible body, but I really have no idea who they are, all I know is that schools and univerisites recognise them. I think that probably the single most important sign that a certification body is credible is its willingness to fail people. I know that lots of people failed their O and A levels.
How many coaches fail to get a certificate at the end of the course?
Coaching is not manufacturing. We are not churning out mass produced, identical products. As I always tell clients, we can guarantee the process or the result, not both.
Where a customer (buyer) wants to make a low risk decision and provision a mediocre service, it's best to guarantee the process. Then the customer can see what they are getting for their money, even though the result will be less than ideal. Since the customer's buying criteria is not getting into trouble for making the wrong decision, the result doesn't matter. It's the same as fleet managers buying Ford Escorts. No-one liked driving them, but who could question the decision to buy Ford?
Where a customer cares about the result that the client (end user) gets, the process is no longer a relevant decision criteria - what matters is the ability to get the result, no matter what.
Some of you will disagree, you will say that to ensure quality you have to follow a defined process and that is true. It's just that quality does not mean good, it means mass producable. If by quality you mean 'the best coaching' then no, you cannot follow a rigid process.
"But you have to follow some process" and of course, yes, you do. You have to find out what the client wants, form a relationship, set some ground rules, explore the situation and so on, until you get to the end result. But how long exploring the situation? And will there be any barriers? How many? And will the client come up with the optimal solution first time? These are the things that cannot be predicted, so coaches who stick to a rigid process always fail to get deep enough into the situation to be of any real benefit to the client.
So, if the customer wants to provision a coaching service that looks good on paper, go for quality, certification, a defined process.
If the customer wants to deliver a coaching service that actually gets measurable business and personal results, focus on outcome, on those measurable results. And then let the coach get on with it.
Certificates do not define quality for one very, very simple reason. The certificates for coaching are issued by coach training schools who make money out of issuing certificates. You work out the ethics of that one.
Oh - and the difference between provision and delivery? A HR department can provide a coaching service but that doesn't mean anyone has to use it. They can simply make it available for employees to use if they want to. Since few people will, it doesn't matter if it's any good. It's the same basis as legal helpines etc. The number of people who actually use them is tiny, but the perceived benefit is high.
To deliver a coaching service means to actually have it running, live, coaching people, getting results, evaluating. That's where coaches prove their worth, not in their certificates.
But - there will always be people who just find it easier to believe a piece of paper from a company that they don't really know anything about. At school, we took O and A levels certified by, for example, JMB. I'm sure that JMB are a very reputable and credible body, but I really have no idea who they are, all I know is that schools and univerisites recognise them. I think that probably the single most important sign that a certification body is credible is its willingness to fail people. I know that lots of people failed their O and A levels.
How many coaches fail to get a certificate at the end of the course?
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